Found on the Monsters and Madonnas blog, M. H. Agha wrote a nice rant about cliché. No nudes with glass bubbles, no salad components (including, but not limited to, cabbage and eggs), and no kids in Mexico.
He ends with, "In fact, if I can help it, I will refrain from taking pictures of any description, under any pretext whatsoever."
Now get out there and get photographing!
Enjoyed it. Thanks for Sharing.
Cheers,
Dan
It's sad to see that there were ironic professional photographers rants 70+ years ago. Let it go. Forever immortalized in your adolescence, M.F. Agha by the ICP
haaaaaa....ha....man...even THEN people were jealous of success and ranted about it.
yes...you have to give the masses what they want and you'll be famous (maybe)....let them have it...they are working for the crowd, not for themselves..not something to be jealous of I think myself....
Funny we had a discussion on this very forum a couple years ago about cliche subjects and old barns were on that list too - along with rusting trucks in wheat fields and wind carved canyons and flowers and long-exposure water falls . . .
heh
it might be cool to try to get as many of that list as possible..all in one shot
There was a "This American Life" episode where they did that with a song (show #88 transcript). They put every element of what a survey said people liked in a song, and what they didn't.
Most hated topic for a song? 33% said holidays, 10% said religion.
...
Ira Glass -- Dave, can I ask you to talk about the least-popular song? What did people hate the most, and what did you have to fit into this song?
Dave Soldier -- There was quite a diversity in hatred. There were a lot of hated instruments. They're all personal favorites of mine, of course. The bagpipe, the accordion, the harp, the organ, the banjo, the tuba, for instance. We had to make sure that all of those were in there.
Ira Glass -- And when it comes to most unwanted vocal styles, you found opera and rap were the two most unwanted vocal styles. And so what you did is that, in this song that you put together, you have an opera singer rapping.
[MUSIC -- LEAST WANTED SONG]
Dave Soldier -- You see, if only 10% of people like opera and only 10% of people like rap, and say these two categories don't overlap very well, that means that if you put both of them in there, only 1% of people will be left who can still listen to the piece. So we put everything in there that people don't like. For instance, some people detest cowboy music. So we have the opera singer singing rap about cowboys.
An instructor I had years ago (Thomas Joshua Cooper, about 1980) started off the first class with "I do not want to see any photographs of babies or kittens."
A good rule!
I have no idea why people find cats amusing or cute.
"Great things are accomplished by talented people who believe they will
accomplish them."
Warren G. Bennis
www.gbphotoworks.com
Great idea, but someone will have to go to Venice, and I guess do some sort of double exposure arrangement to leave a spot for the Mexican child in Mexico. Should be doable.Originally Posted by DrTang
The bums, apples, grapes, eggs, nude, Vaseline smeared nude, and so on could be divided between the scenes.
Say, a Vaseline smeared nude holding a fly-covered child in one hand, an egg in the other at sunset in an abandoned and burnt out hotel in Cozumel for one part and a sleeping bum in St Marks square, covered by newspapers which in turn are covered with huge grapes, mammoth apples, bisected cabbages, and so on while being watched by an elderly Indian in a rocker knitting a figleaf for a plaster reproduction of a Greek statue.
Edit- Forgot the cats, dogs and others.
One man's Mede is another man's Persian.
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